


Insect Hunter

by downthepub (Finnspiration)



Category: The Grand Tour (TV) RPF, Top Gear (UK) RPF
Genre: Gen, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:54:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27460762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Finnspiration/pseuds/downthepub
Summary: Episode related ficlet: In Bolivia, Richard doesn't want to sleep alone because of all the insects.preslash James/Richard (might be able to read this as gen if desired)
Relationships: Richard Hammond & James May, Richard Hammond/James May
Comments: 3
Kudos: 21





	Insect Hunter

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted in 2012 here: https://topgearslash.livejournal.com/1792054.html

**Insect Hunter**  
  
by [](https://downthepub.livejournal.com/profile)[**downthepub**](https://downthepub.livejournal.com/)  
  
_(Bolivia)_  
  
  
The door creaked open. Hammond peeked round the doorframe. “James.” His chest was bare and he wore only pyjama trousers.  
  
James propped himself up on his elbow, yawned, and punched his pillow into some semblance of shape. It was already hot and sweaty, just as he was. “What’s the matter? Another insect in your room?”  
  
“A billion. Come on,” he said in a voice that mixed annoyance, gruffness, and cajoling. “I stayed with you on the road. I didn’t joke around or anything. Let me stay here tonight! I can’t sleep right if I know they’re—they’re buzzing around.” He waved a hand vaguely in the air, and looked at James with his big puppy dog eyes. “Come on.”  
  
James sighed and tossed back the sheet. He edged over to make room.  
  
A gleeful, relieved smile leapt to Hammond’s face. He hurried into the room, shutting the door behind him, and sort of half leapt, half crawled into bed beside James. “Thanks, mate,” he said quick and breathless and light.  
  
He was hot and solid and he didn’t stay far enough away from James. James grimaced at the feel of skin brushing skin; he didn’t like to be touched. It irritated him, made his skin feel more sensitive, prickly, uncomfortable, and sometimes worse.  
  
“Stop it. Stay on your side of the bed.”  
  
“My side? I have a side now?” Richard huffed his humour like a dog clearing its lungs from a long sleep. “Thanks.” He settled down awkward and quick, snuggling into one half of the bed as if it did belong to him. His eyes were big and bright and warm, and he was only taking half the pillow, or slightly less, his loose brown hair flopping against it, as if it was also tired. He looked different with his partially grown beard and moustache, rakish even.  
  
“Lie still and go to sleep,” James said, trying to sound stern. Mostly he sounded disgusted with himself. He reached out and pushed back Hammond’s hair off his forehead, half rough and half gentle, like he didn’t know which he meant.  
  
“I shall.” Hammond nodded, his face against the pillow still. He blinked sleepily. “Because I know you’ll chase any bugs away.”  
  
“Well, I will,” said James.  
  
“I know.” Hammond yawned, and reached up belatedly to cover it. The back of his hand clumsily bumped against James’ arm.  
  
James twitched away from the touch. “Stop that.” _Don’t touch me!_ It seemed he always had to keep telling them, telling them and telling them!  
  
“Sorry.” Hammond settled down and stilled, sort of halfway freezing, like a rabbit in hiding. His eyes were so large in the near darkness.  
  
James reached for the lantern and turned it lower again. He settled down, feeling awkward and too large.  
  
Hammond blinked sleepily and then his eyes were shut, and after bit, James fell asleep too.  
  
#  
  
The first thing he was aware of next was the unbearable warmth, as if it had grown hotter whilst he slept. The second was of small distressed sound, frankly a bit like a whimper. He reached for Richard before his conscious mind caught him up. “Hammond.”  
  
Hammond made a truncated little swat, as if to chase him, or anything else that might brush or buzz against him.  
  
The buzzing; now James heard it. Swooping lower, nearer, a drone loud in the darkness of the room. Richard’s voice rose, almost in a keening sound, and he clutched the covers closer over his head.  
  
“Hammond, Hammond.” James pulled the sheet higher over both of them, and reached for him. It was easier to touch than be touched, and Hammond’s distress got past his barriers. He pulled him nearer, against him, an awkward half-clothed embrace. Richard was trembling, still too asleep to be quite rational, if he could be at all about insects.  
  
“Shh. Shh.” Running a hand awkwardly over Richard’s hair, he felt the damp, sweaty softness of it. Rich pressed close against him. James felt something turn over in his chest, like an engine halfway afraid to start. He cradled Richard close, feeling his own heart thumping hard in his chest.  
  
It felt so dangerous, like starting a fire; could he contain it, or would it overrun his barriers? He knew Richard wouldn’t hurt him, not on purpose, but he didn’t like to be touched; and here Hammond was in his arms, too far gone for personal space, clinging to him like a frightened little boy.  
  
“Shh. Shh.” He was startled and a little bit ashamed to find his lips had pressed against Richard’s temple gently. Not that Hammond even appeared to notice.  
  
“Make it go away,” said Richard, clutching at May’s thin shirt. “Get rid of it. I can’t...” He squeaked—or something like a squeak—as the buzzing grew nearer, and burrowed his head (with a thump) against James’ chest. “James!” he growled, anger and a demanding tone now overtaking the pleading fear as he awakened more thoroughly from the nightmare it must have seemed to him. His hands were fists full of James’ thin sleeping shirt.  
  
“All right. Let me up.” James struggled free from the sheets and the clinging limpet. Richard’s breathing was hard and fast. James swept the sheet back over him. “It’s all right,” he said again, and stood up in his bare feet on the floor. Even the floor didn’t feel cool.  
  
He turned up the lantern.  
  
Hammond was a lump on the bed, a mummy, a speed hump under the sheet, swathed by its whiteness.  
  
Insects swirled in the middle of the room. They must have gotten through the screen; it looked like at least half a dozen. James walked to the screened window and frowned at a hole. Gaffer tape it was, then.  
  
Effecting the repair took short moments; then he picked up the fly swatter and headed towards the swarm.  
  
“Get a move on! They can sting through cloth,” growled Richard, only slightly muffled.  
  
“They can’t,” James promised, lying to reassure him.  
  
“They bloody can.”  
  
“Hammond,” said May in gentle remonstrance. “Who do you suppose knows more about insects between us? You, with your phobia, or me? Me, because I know more about everything. You probably can’t even stand to read about them.”  
  
Richard gave a little chuff of laughter under the sheet. He still sounded afraid, but more in control now, and James was encouraged to continue. He stalked the room with a flyswatter, keeping up a steady, calm, possibly slightly boring monologue about insects, the climate here, weather, the likelihood of the weather changing, storm fronts, and heat waves he remembered from his childhood. Richard listened in silence most of the time, interjecting a question, comment, or snicker from time to time.  
  
“Tell me another, mate!” he said at one point.  
  
James obliged him.  
  
He could feel Richard gaining control of his fear with the steady flow of words. At length, before James had quite swatted all of the insects, he saw Richard’s head actually peek out from under the sheet. He still held it up to his chin, and his eyes, even squinting against the light, were big, his gaze darting around. But he watched, preternaturally still, while James hunted down and killed the last two.  
  
Richard watched him, solemn and still now, his face looking expressionless in the dim-lit room, even though Richard was never expressionless.  
  
“There. Am I your hero now?” asked James, smiling a little as he put down the flyswatter and moved awkwardly back into bed, feeling too large and all legs and knees and arms.  
  
“Yes,” said Richard. He moved to the far end of the bed so James had more room than he’d had before. But all the time, until James turned the light down, Hammond watched him, so still, as if memorising everything about his face.  
  
He didn’t say thank you again; he didn’t say anything. But he meant it so very much James didn’t even need to hear it.  
  
The heat crept up James’ cheeks in the dark. But he was so tired he fell right back to sleep anyway. His dreams were full of being dressed as a big game hunter, going after lions. It was an odd dream, because he’d never wanted to kill a lion in his life.  
  
Richard was there, driving Oliver. He laughed at all of James’ jokes, and James never missed a shot.  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I am now on Tumblr, https://downthepub.tumblr.com/, though I no longer write Top Gear fic


End file.
